Skyrim

Okay, everyone who knows me knows that I have been a TES fan girl since Oblivion, this was also about the time I really started getting into gaming. Obviously this dates me (as not gaming for very long at all) but nonetheless I have been actively waiting for Skyrim since its working name was released in 2008.
I think shall start with an anecdote or three, I pretty much told my mother that when TES:V was released (2010 was the scheduled release) that I would not be attending school that day; attend school, I did not. I bought about $50-$60aud of chips, confectionery, (glo juice obviously) and energy drink, dashed into my game retailer and twitched nervously as I waited for my copy, that due to what is becoming a common occurrence in australia, the game was put on sale a day early. I was freaking out frantically texting and calling my boyfriend while trying to post updates to twitter and facebook. I put in the disc, while rambling incoherently on the phone, steam popped up, I typed in the serial... BOOM cannot install game has not been released, so I went a bit nutty.
I spent the next several hours reading the strategy guide and pacing. Midnight came along, so I set-up my install and gazed and my screen, watching Harry Partridge‘s Skyrim video. I was ready to play after a 20min wait and then... updates and patches, AN HOUR OF THEM.
By the time that was all done, I was a little bit annoyed, It was 0130 and I just wanted to play the fragging game. I found out later that this was even worse for my cousins in in our wild west, Perth who are 3hrs behind us, the game releases at midnight Australian eastern time though.
Okay, so here is the actual review, I just wanted to give that to show the excitement and irritation I entered the game with.

So I open the game, and started construction my character, that’s when alarm bells started ringing. It was hard to move the little sliders to alter my appearance and I wasn't really sure what menu contained what particular aspect of appearance. I just had to kind of go with it and hope everything worked out. Eventually I discovered that it was easier to use the keyboard for the creation process. I have to admit that I was slightly awed by the opening, but nowhere near as much as with oblivion, I have watched that cutscence at least a couple of dozen times and it still gives me shivers. Skyrim didn’t have that epic RPG vastness shown in its opening, no big shots of the evil that awaits or the world that we will spend hours grinding through, great for realism but RPGs suit having a little bit of a teaser, a little bit of prophesy.
I got through the creation and intro, still a little bit confused but generally okay. I meandered through the introduction, bla bla execution, bla bla dragons. I just wanted to get into some real gameplay!
so I got out into the real world an took a look around, my first though was how ugly it is, not in a poorly designed way, but in a snow, rocks, dirt, and cloud way. I pretty much accepted though that I wasn’t going to aesthetically like skyrim that much, as I was never a big fan of northern Cyrodiil (Cyrodiil is the country that oblivion was set in, the northern border shares the southern border of skyrim, it shares much of skyrim’s climate) so I opened my menu and looked for the map, easy to find with the 4 point compass style menu. I look at it, and was like “what?!” I was utterly confused, was it tilted, where were the edges of the map, what was going on here! I did notice a marked village though so I sauntered off in that direction. Also in regard to the map in a later quest; I don’t particularly have a knack with mountains, especially in games, but my job was to climb one, so I walked around part of it, and I could not find an way up. So I passed out on the lounge room floor with the strategy guide and a blankey (about 6am) and woke up at about midday. Eventually after looking in the strategy guide some more, I found that the path was on the other side of a mountain near a village, perhaps the dude who told me to climb the mountain said that, but I didn’t hear, or was too thick to understand, so now I had to work out a way to get there. I looked at my map, all I could see was cloud, and the hint of a river. I looked up the village on my strategy guide map, I squinted my eyes and managed to see a river and a road that seemed far far away, I looked at the “ye old” preorder map (it looks more like the oblivion map), and I had no idea where I was. so I gave up on that and I wandered down the river and eventually got to my destination. I understand the map now mostly. I realised though that map problem was a more obvious feature of what I now realise was me having no idea how the menu system worked, It felt like an arrogant, “if you don’t get this you suck” or a “this is our game, you should just work it out cause we don't have time to make a tutorial”
Okay, fine, I’m stupid, I get that but that’s no excuse for not having some form of tutorial when you make a menu system that is not like most other menus (I did read the booklet, that didn’t help me much) It made the first few, already sleep deprived hours of gameplay difficult and the world felt nowhere near as open as oblivion did (I was only confident in changing quests about 6hrs in)
and the booklet doesn't count, I read the booklet and it does not replace a proper tutorial.
It felt like a new game in a long series that had menus that were always structured in that way, and that I should go back and play them or do some more research about the past games. It felt as if you had to be one of “them” to understand it. Okay, I am a bit slow, I can let it slide but this really took away from how I expected the first few hours to pan out. I planned to play non stop for at least 24hrs,
I do have some massive praise for the game as well.The dungeons, I hated oblivion dungeons, they felt claustrophobic and I always got lost, walking around in circles, skyrim dungeons are more straight forward and vast and it makes it easier to focus on your objectives and combat, but they are also not so simple that its impossible to get lost, I have to check the map every now and then, but its not a constant concern.
Also the combat is awesome, oblivion really messed up the leveled combat, you could predict the leveling up of enemies and the game was either too easy or too hard. The advances in skyrim are perfect, I’m almost level 10 after about 12 hrs of gameplay, and I have encountered 3 or 4 frost trolls, every time I have either died or run away, I’m just no match, maybe as I build my perks (think borderlands, and if you don't know what I mean, and don't mind me rambling on, chk this) and skills I will be able to beat it, but I cant just level up and beat him on raw power as a level 10 and I doubt as even a level 20 or 30.
Also the magic is amazing, I was always put off from being a battlemage because casting was slow, drained lots of magika and was weak, and looked terrible. The lower level magic that I’m using is pretty weak but its fast, pretty and satisfying. It hold the promise of leveling up to become something awesome, and when it is a bit of a fail you can always equip a one handed weapon to supplement it.
The menu system when you do finally work out how the frag it works, is pretty good, I love how the little meaningless quests are filed into there own out of the way category, although I must say whoever picked the font, you couldn’t have picked something less related if you tried, you could at least weathered it a bit. It’s one of the cleanest sans serif fonts I have seen. nice to read but so strange in a “ye old” style game. also the disappearance of the character preview. sure I can exit the menu, toggle to third person and look at myself. But in oblivion I could drop things and kick them around to see the details. and yet you (and I'm happy you did) implement a better way at of looking at items.
It seems that fashion has been abandoned, if anyone in the production spent 10 minutes on the tesnexus (one of the largest mod bases for oblivion and morrowind) one would observe that some of the most downloaded and famous mods improve magic, midas magic; combat, deadly reflex; overall character presentation, beautiful people. and those were all accounted for in skyrim, but not the NUMEROUS better armour mods, everything from the original, albeit revealing, hentai magic collection, to all the modifications of the current armour to make it look better. Some of the most requested items on skyrim forums were cloaks and better looking clothing/armour, and the same is the case with weapons. It seems, both from observing npcs, and shops, that the clothing is uglier than ever. War is no excuse for this, people always want the prettiest and most powerful items, no matter the cost. I hope there is going to be a dlc improving this, the shivering isle expansion for oblivion has some of the best clothing and weapons. I bet many people haven't been vocal about this yet, because clothing is one of the things that you worry about once you have finished the game and settled down, you something you then take pleasure from. It takes away from the role playing for some character types, if the prettiest thing you can wear is your underwear.
Also some of the little things that have been added to evoke a sense of reality, such as being able to cut wood. Seemed a little hurried and as if they were added last minute, They seem to lack purpose.
There are some things I liked about oblivion better. In oblivion you can jump off just about everything, sure you would die, but it gave you the freedom to do as you pleased. Also I miss not carrying items to perform alchemy. Alchemy was one of my core skills in oblivion, I mastered it on more than one occasion (gained the maximum skill) and it is nowhere near as accessible as it was and that is a bit sad.

Overall: this is without a doubt the best elder scrolls game I have played, It lives up to the hype and it was worth ever cent and compared to the gameplay hours I expect to gain, it did not cost many cents. I think I will echo what other reviews are saying and go with 9-9.5 out of 10.